Jerry Lewis Slams Reality T.V.

While promoting his new documentary, the 85-year-old comic told reporters that shows like “American Idol” are filled with no-talent losers and that these programs are destroying the medium.

“The kids who’re on American Idol, they’re all McDonalds wipe outs,” Lewis told TV critics in Beverly Hills. “They all worked there and now they’re doing [reality TV].”

Regarding “The Biggest Losers,” in which contestants compete to lose the most weight, Lewis barked: “Who gives a s__t?The industry has destroyed itself. We don’t have the soul in our industry that we had when I was working in it. The soul has been desperately deteriorating [in] it, only because you’ve got a guy running a network whose aunt died and left him some stock.”

Lewis, who first rocketed to stardom as partner to crooner Dean Martin in the late 1940s, is the star of a new documentary about his life entitled “The Method to the Madness of Jerry Lewis.”

However, he praised the concept of television as an excellent medium for the dissemination of creative and informative ideas.

“I don’t allow people in my family to use the term ‘TV.’ It’s ‘television,’ it’s a miracle, and deserves respect,” he said. Lewis is also appalled by the phenomenon of movies and television shows being available on mobile devices.

“They put all of their product on the stupid phone,” he said. “You’re gonna put Lawrence of Arabia on that stupid son of a b_tch?”

However, perhaps surprisingly, Lewis did not attack such social network systems like Facebook and Twitter.

“I think it’s wonderful for people who enjoy using it,” Lewis said. “When they find out they’re getting their life cluttered, they’ll make those decisions [to get rid of the technology] for themselves. They don’t need to be told by a celebrity that it’s a load of crap.”

There is also one contemporary comedian Lewis likes: Jim Carrey.

“Jim Carrey, [he’s the] most brilliant physical comedian we’ve had,” he gushed. “He’s as good as they get ... but of course you cannot deny Billy Crystal and Robin Williams, you cannot deny them.”